Welsh Universities

Welsh universities comprise part of the UK’s world-leading teaching and research base. Despite its relatively small size, the sector produces a disproportionately higher share of the world’s published academic articles, global citations and highly cited articles. In the last REF (2014) Welsh universities secured the highest percentage of world-leading research of any part of the UK in terms of its impact, with almost half of it having a direct transformational effect on society and the economy.

Wales has a proud tradition of achievement in all aspects of education, science, engineering, medicine, the arts, humanities and the social sciences. The theory of natural selection, the early development of crystallography, the discovery of free radicals and meson decay, the invention of the microphone, the fuel cell and the teleprinter, and more recently, ground‐breaking research into embryonic stem cells, are all part of Wales’s scientific tradition. Wales is also home to leading research in many areas of the arts, humanities and social sciences with pioneering work in dictionary development, translation and language technologies, the UK’s first Department of International Politics, one of the world’s largest visual art prizes (Artes Mundi), the National Eisteddfod, and distinguished authors and poets, such as RS Thomas, Dylan Thomas and Kate Roberts.

Welshuniversities comprise part of the UK’s world-leading teaching and research base and, despite its relatively small size, the sector produces a disproportionately higher share of the world’s published academic articles, global citations and highly cited articles. Wales’ share of the top 1% highest cited articles is over twice as high as might be expected based on its overall population share. In the last REF (2014) Welsh universities secured the highest percentage of world-leading research of any part of the UK in terms of its impact, with almost half of it having a direct transformational effect on society and the economy.

The majority of LSW fellows come from Wales’s 8 universities. As a national Society, the Council considers it an a priority to have engagement and activities across all universities. The Society currently receives support from all eight universities .